Barbara saw the launch start, with mixed emotions. She was something of a rebel and had anybody but Cartwright ordered her to stop she would not have obeyed. She waited in the shade, fixing her eyes on the laboring tugs. Sometimes she felt a thrill of triumph because Lister had conquered; sometimes she was tortured by suspense. She did not know if he stood at the levers in the engine-room, or lay, unconscious, in his bunk. Well, she would soon know and she shrank.
She rubbed the glasses and looked again. There were two towropes; Terrier plunged across the rollers on Arcturus' starboard bow, the Spanish tug to port. It looked as if the wreck's steering-gear did not work. Spray blew about the boats and the crested seas broke in foaming turmoil against the towed vessel's side until she drew in behind the Isleta. A few minutes afterwards she swung round the mole and Barbara thought the picture moving.
The tugs looked very small; the half-loaded hull they towed to an anchorage floated high above her proper water-line. Rolling on the languid swell at the harbor mouth, she looked huge. Her rusty side was like a warehouse wall. When she lifted her plates from the water one saw the wet weed shine; higher up it clung, parched and dry, to the red iron, although there were clean belts where the stuff was scraped away. Barbara pictured the exhausted men scraping feebly when the sea was calm and the sun did not touch the vessel's side.
All the same, the men had won a triumph. It looked impossible that the handful of bemused ruffians she had seen start at Liverpool could have dragged the big vessel from the bottom of the lagoon, but the thing was done. Arcturus, battered and rusty, with sagging masts and broken funnel, was coming into harbor. A big pump throbbed on board, throwing water down her side; she flew a small, bright red ensign aft and a new house-flag at the masthead. Barbara thought the flag flaunted proudly and the thing was significant. Cartwright had weathered the storm, but she had helped.
The tugs' engines stopped and Barbara's heart beat, for a yellow flag went up. She hated the ominous signal, and turning the glasses, followed the doctor's launch. The boat ran alongside Terrier, a man went on board, returned and climbed a ladder to Arcturus' deck. He did not come back for some time and Barbara looked for Lister, but could not see him. Then the yellow flag was hauled down and Arcturus moved slowly up the harbor.
A fleet of shore-boats followed and when the anchor dropped crowded about the ship. Barbara braced herself and waited. Half the voyage was over and when the engines were cleaned and mended Arcturus would steam to England. The salvors had won, but sometimes victory cost much, and Barbara knew she might have to pay.
A launch with an awning steamed to the mole and vanished behind the wall. Barbara stopped in the shade; somehow she durst not go to the steps. Cartwright came up, but seeing his grave look, she let him pass. Then the American doctor reached the top and called to somebody below. Three or four men awkwardly lifted a stretcher to the pavement, and Cartwright signed to the driver of a carriage waiting in the road. Wheeler stopped him.
"It's not far. Carrying will be smoother."
"Very well, I'll see all's ready," said Cartwright and got into the carriage.
Then Barbara went to the stretcher, which was covered by green canvas. She thought she knew who lay behind the screens, and her look was strained.